


The Fair Hermione

by RESimon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 16:16:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RESimon/pseuds/RESimon
Summary: Draco was seven the first time he snuck in to visit her.He had grown up hearing about “The Fair Hermione” at almost every gathering with the Dark Lord. They’d all waited for her seventh birthday to arrive, constantly whispering about how so she could join him and take up her rightful place under his Lordship’s wing.No Hogwarts, No Prophecy, No Horcruxes, Voldemort stays in power AUInspired by The Fair Angiola by Thomas Frederick Crane. Written for TheMourningMadam's Fairy Tale Fest 2019.





	The Fair Hermione

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes life gets in the way despite one's best intentions. I'm late to the game, hope you can all forgive me. My story is inspired by The Fair Angiola by Thomas Frederick Crane. It's best described as a No Hogwarts, No Prophecy, No Horcruxes, Voldemort stays in power AU. Hope you all enjoy it and please leave some love in the comments on this story as well as on the stories of the other participants!!

Draco was seven the first time he snuck in to visit her. 

He had grown up hearing about “The Fair Hermione” at almost every gathering with the Dark Lord. They’d all waited for her seventh birthday to arrive, constantly whispering about how so she could join him and take up her rightful place under his Lordship’s wing. The Dark Lord had opted to keep her secluded in her own wing at Malfoy Manor, saying the Manor was a more suitable location for a child than either the small house on his land or any of the other pureblood homes he spent his time in. Nobody was certain how the Dark Lord had detected that one particular muggle woman, out of the several pilfering from his lands, was pregnant with a powerful witch, but they were all grateful that he had. She would be a boon to their ranks, even if her parentage was...unfortunate.

Draco resented her. She had always gotten so much praise from everyone without being present or even having  _ done anything.  _ Meanwhile, he had just learned how to fly on a real broom and nobody even wanted to watch him. To add insult to injury, she cried constantly and had done since she arrived a few months earlier. She had even driven Blaise and Theo away with her caterwauling earlier that day when they’d been over to play. The trio had been running around the halls of the Manor pretending to be on a mission from the Dark Lord when she had started her wailing —  _ again.  _ His so-called “friends” had teased him about living with a ghoul and when he’d suggested they take their games outside they had the nerve to actually suggest that he was  _ afraid  _ of  _ A GIRL _ . 

He simply could not have that, so he resolved to sneak into her room and set her straight about whose house this actually was and how guests were to comport themselves. He waited behind the safety of his bedroom door until he was certain that his parents were completely asleep and then snuck into her wing as quietly as he could, careful not to disrupt any of the slumbering adults on his way. He could hear that she was crying again, but not the screeching she had indulged in earlier. 

Her head popped up the moment she heard the door open. “Who’s there?” He could see her small figure looking toward the door through the darkness, wiping the tears from her cheeks and sniffling as Draco stepped into the moonlight coming through the window.

“Why do you cry all the time? It’s  _ annoying _ .” She scoffed at his snotty attitude. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. 

Draco stepped closer still before responding. “Don’t lie. You stay in here and you moan and carry on  _ and _ you made my friends leave.” He noticed the moment when her resolve began to crack, her lip began wobbling just before her eyes started to fill with fresh tears. 

When she spoke, her voice broke around her stubborn attempts to fight the sobs. “I di-dn’t mean t-to—”

“Why are you crying  _ again?!”  _ Draco held out his hands, entirely too exasperated with this other child to contain it any longer. 

Hermione tried to swallow a sob before whispering “I miss my mum and dad.”

“Why?! Surely you know you’re better off with The Dark Lord than with your muggle parents. He’s the greatest wizard of our time — probably since Merlin — and he’ll teach you to be a powerful witch. What more could you possibly want?”

Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head to the side as though she almost could not comprehend the words he was saying. “To understand! My parents told me every day how much they love me and how important I was to them and my mum just  _ gave me away _ ,” her voice broke on the last words and she hugged her knees to her chest and pressed her face against them in an attempt to stifle her sobs. 

Draco had never liked it when girls cried, he didn’t know what to do around them when they did that. Whenever Pansy would cry it was always this whiny moaning with no actual tears and continued until she either got her way or whoever was around ignored her for long enough that she stopped. Daphne Greengrass was the only other girl he knew and she had only cried once in his presence when she had turned her ankle in a rabbit hole in the lawn. They were quiet, dainty tears and subsided quickly once a house-elf attended to her. 

Hermione’s cries were different. They were neither false nor subdued, but visceral and anguished. It had never occurred to him that she might not have wanted to come with The Dark Lord, or that she was taken from a loving home— no,  _ given  _ by a mother who claimed to love her. She wasn’t crying because she was ungrateful and spoiled as he’d expected, but because she had lost the life she had before. 

He didn’t know why, but Draco felt compelled to offer her some sort of comfort. He walked closer, approaching Hermione as though she were a wounded animal. Once he was close enough, Draco placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. When she didn’t flinch away from the touch he became bolder, patting her a few times before sitting on the bed next to her and sliding his arm around her shoulders intending to give her a side hug— the most contact he’d ever had with a girl and highly improper behavior. The moment she felt his awkward embrace she launched herself at him and clung to him as though she thought if she squeezed hard enough he’d release the answers she was looking for. 

“I’m sorry. It sounds confusing. I would be sad if my parents gave me away, too, even if it was to the Dark Lord. I love them very much and I would be very sad if I couldn’t see them anymore.” He was barely able to choke the first few words out for how hard she was squeezing him, but the longer he spoke the easier it got. He wrapped his other arm around her and just held her for a few moments as her sobs softened to hiccups. 

After a long bit of silence, she finally spoke. “Do you think you could stay for a while? It’s nice to have someone around, I don’t have much company. I don’t have anyone to talk to most of the time. It’s nice having someone here, even if you are a boy and were not very nice to me when you first got here.” 

Draco squawked at this. “You made my friends leave! And then you  _ hugged _ me!” Hermione’s hiccups shifted to wet giggles at his outburst. “I suppose I’ll stay, though. I like it when you laugh much better than when you cry.”

“Maybe we can be each other’s friends. I’ll certainly be a better friend than the ones who left, who’s ever heard of a boy leaving because he heard a girl crying? They must have really been scared.” Draco stared at her open-mouthed for a moment before breaking into his own laughter.

“They accused  _ me  _ of being scared — it’s why I came in here tonight! But  _ they _ were the ones who left!” The two continued to laugh and chatter away until they fell asleep next to one another in Hermione’s large bed. 

Draco woke in his own bed the next morning and assumed that one of the elves must have moved him in the night. He hoped his new friend wouldn’t cry quite so much that day, but resolved to sneak into her room again that night just in case. 

* * *

Draco was thirteen the first time Hermione kissed him.

After that first night, he had snuck into her room almost every night since and the pair would talk about almost anything under the sun. Typically they would discuss whatever book the Dark Lord allowed her to read that week— or that Draco had snuck to her— or what new spell he had taught her. Sometimes they would discuss Draco’s day or his friends. Every once in a while, when she was feeling particularly homesick, she would tell him stories about her life before coming to the Manor. The pair had become thick as thieves and were as close as a pair of adolescents could be. 

Draco was in her room late one night discussing a friendly game of quidditch that had gone awry that week— he had narrowly avoided crashing into a bird in his narrow-sighted pursuit of the snitch— when she leaned over and kissed him right on his mouth. It was quick, chaste, and very sweet. If he were being completely honest, he kind of wished she would do it again.

“What was that for?” His voice was about two octaves higher than it was when he was telling the story before she kissed him and the comical way it broke on the last word would typically have had Hermione dissolving into laughter at his expense, but instead, she was quietly looking at her lap. 

Hermione shrugged. “I wanted to know what it was like and you’re not only the only boy I know but the only person I speak with other than  _ the Dark Lord.”  _ She began to pick imaginary lint off of her jumper.

“Oh,” was all he managed before clearing his throat and continuing his story from where he had been interrupted. They pretended it never happened, but Draco regularly hoped she would get curious again.

Draco was sixteen when Hermione kissed him again.

He could tell she had been crying, which was not unusual on her birthday in and of itself, but the way that she was kissing him was  _ highly _ out of the ordinary. Her lips were frantic and relentless against his, and he almost lost himself in the kisses. He had waited so long for her to kiss him again and these were not the sweet, chaste kisses of thirteen-year-old curiosity— however, he did not let himself get carried away and gently pressed her away from him with a hand on each shoulder.

He marched her backward toward the chaise at the end of her bed and sat her down, seating himself next to her. “Explain?” It was no surprise to him that he was having trouble forming words, he was honestly surprised he even managed one. It was taking a fair amount of concentration to keep from embarrassing himself any further as he fully took in her appearance. Her hair was even wilder than usual — as though she had run her hands through it repeatedly — her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and her jaw was stubbornly set. Even as worked up as she was, she was radiant. He had always thought she was perfect, she could probably have neglected to wash for several days and be covered in mud and he would still think she was perfect.

“ _ Apparently,”  _ she crossed her arms, poked her tongue in her cheek, and inhaled slowly before continuing, “now that I am seventeen and therefore of age in the wizarding world, I am to give  _ the Dark Lord Voldemort _ ” — Draco cringed both at the use of His name and at the level of vitriol in her tone as she said it — “an heir.” 

Draco puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly. “As awful as that sounds, how exactly does that relate to you kissing me...erm...like  _ that _ ?” 

Hermione’s face reddened at the question, frustrated tears that she refused to shed still present in her eyes as she stared straight ahead, steadfastly refusing to look at Draco. “I might be forced to copulate with  _ Him, _ but I’ll be damned if I give him my first time.” She visibly deflated, the fight fleeing her all at once. He couldn’t think of another time he’d seen her so nervous, but he was certain that she  _ was  _ nervous. He knew her tells— she had grown fidgety and was gnawing on a hangnail on her thumb. He assumed that she was nervous over the idea of having to do...what she was going to have to do with the Dark Lord that he was caught off guard by her question. “I was hoping you would be... um… willing to help me dispense with my virginity.” 

Draco was nearly certain he had died. He certainly wasn’t breathing and his heart had definitely stopped. 

She wanted to have sex with him. 

Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that she would want to actually have sex with him, sure he’d imagined it, but he’d been completely in love with her for years and she hadn’t even kissed him again.

“Are you sure you want it to be me?” He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. 

He wasn’t someone who often felt self-conscious, but the notion that she wanted him to be her first time was intimidating. He was still a virgin himself and thought he would be until his parents married him off to some pureblood heiress so he could continue the Malfoy line. He knew that people had sex for pleasure — he  _ was _ a teenage boy, after all — but he hadn’t truly considered the possibility of premarital sex that deeply because there were only a handful of girls he interacted with. The thought of sex with someone like Pansy scaring him so badly when he’d tried to imagine it that he’d not touched himself for a week. But the only girl he’d ever thought of having sex with was Hermione, who was completely unattainable. 

Or so he’d thought.

She scoffed through her nose and held her hands out to the sides for a moment, shaking her head. “I mean, I had hoped not to have to lose my virginity under duress, but I have frequently imagined it being you. I just want it to be with someone I trust and love who cares about  _ me _ and not his family line. I trust you. I  _ love _ you,” she reached out and took his hand, turning to face him fully, “Draco, please.” Her voice had taken on a desperate edge.

He had known somewhat abstractly that she must have loved him, but she’d never said it to him. He assumed it must have been in the platonic way that he love all of his friends, but it wasn’t. He was  _ in love _ with Hermione and it felt like she had pulled the floor out from underneath his world with this confession. 

He cupped her face in his free hand before leaning forward to kiss her. He kept his kisses chaste at first, eventually releasing her hand to bring his other hand to rest on the opposite side of her face. He deepened the kiss when she opened her mouth and they continued to snog on the chaise for a while before moving to the bed, one on either side as they began to disrobe.

“Turn around,” Hermione instructed him as she bloomed red, fingers fumbling slightly with the buttons on her outer robes.

“You realize I’m going to have to see you naked for this to work? You don’t have to be embarrassed, you’re beautiful.” 

Draco moved around the bed and took her hands in his, kissing each palm in an attempt to calm her nerves. Hermione removed her hands from Draco’s and made to start removing her robes again, but he gently pushed her hands away and began to carefully slide each button free of its hole. When her outer robe was fully open he slid it from her shoulders and then she reached out and began on his buttons. They continued to carefully divest one another of their clothing, exchanging kisses as they went until they were both fully naked. 

He pushed her back gently and crawled his way up her body until his hips were nestled between hers as she lay on her back beneath him. He palmed one of her breasts with one hand while he propped himself up on the opposite elbow. She arched up into his hand at the contact and mewled softly against his lips.

It was then that Draco realized he had no idea what he was doing. Draco started to panic a little, tensing as his palms began to sweat. He had a vague idea of what went where thanks to his friends’ discussions of their various girlfriends and flings, but he’d not had any of either. The two things he recalled most clearly at that moment were something about a “pleasure button” that Blaise swore up and down didn’t exist, and that it usually hurt for girls the first time. 

Hermione pulled away, sensing his reticence. “What’s wrong?” Her features were drawn in confusion and she moved to try and cover herself.

Draco’s face erupted in a blush so fierce he was sure she could feel the heat off of it. “I, erm,” he cleared his throat, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t want to hurt you…” he trailed off, scratching the back of his neck. Hermione smiled, relief written all over her face. 

“I can’t guarantee it won’t hurt, but I can show you how to try and make it feel good, or at least what feels good when I’m on my own.” She took his hand and placed his fingers between her legs, at the top of her sex and instructed him as to how she liked it to be stimulated. Draco was certain he had died again, he had never been so turned on in his life. His body had to have stopped sending blood anywhere but his cock, he was impossibly hard already but with every moan and whimper Hermione released, he swore he got a little bit harder. 

“Please, Draco,” she whimpered and bucked against him. 

He stopped breathing. She slipped a hand between them and took hold of him. She lined him up against her core and released him as he started to ease into her. She placed her hands on his shoulders and held tight, holding her breath, eyes wrenched shut. He studied her face closely as he continued pressing slowly forward, past her barrier, until he was fully seated within her. She flinched when he broke her barrier, but other than that her face did not indicate any pain. He stilled within her so she could adjust to his size — he was not exactly the smallest wizard — until she opened her eyes and nodded at him. 

His thrusts began slowly and it took all of his concentration, he was so determined to make it good for her. She snuck one hand around his shoulder to rest on his back and the other up into his hair. He dropped his head to rest against the curve of her neck. 

“You’re so bloody perfect,” he breathed against her skin. She pulled his face over to hers and kissed him fiercely. He slid one hand between them and found the button at the top of her sex again. She broke the kiss and released a sound so full of passion and pleasure he almost lost himself then and there. He sped up his thrusts and continued to steadily rub circles against her until he felt her tighten around him and she clung to him as she trembled below him. He quickly followed her off the ledge, spilling himself in her tight heat.

They lay wrapped up in each other for a while as their breathing returned to normal. He rolled off of her and spelled them both clean. They exchanged bashful smiles as they dressed. Once they were decent he rounded the bed and pulled her into a giggly hug and kissed her nose. 

She looked up at him through her lashes and her cheeks went a bit pink. “Thank you, it was perfect.” Hermione leaned up and kissed him. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else sharing this with her, kissing her, touching her, having sex with her. He particularly couldn’t stand the thought of it being the Dark Lord.

He took her hand and began to gently lead her to the door. “Let’s run away. Let’s leave right now and never look back. You deserve so much more than this room and  _ Him _ . Let me give it to you, please.”

She looked absolutely shocked. She hadn’t been outside of her room in ten years and had told him before she wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried. He squeezed her hand to try and keep her from panicking, to remind her that he was there with her. She looked at their joined hands, to the door, and then back in his eyes before nodding. 

When she answered, her response was firm. “Okay.” 

Draco stumbled backward as soon as he opened the door, quickly attempting to shield Hermione behind him. There in the doorway stood Lord Voldemort himself, his face largely devoid of expression, but his eyes full of wrath.

Voldemort sighed as he entered the room, wand held in his hand, but not pointed at either of them— not that he needed to point it at them for the threat to be understood. 

“Did you honestly think I didn’t know about your little...friendship?” He laughed through his nose — or what passed for a nose — before continuing. “I have known about this little arrangement from the first night you snuck in here, Draco, and you have been allowed to continue coming back  _ only _ with my permission.” 

He placed his wand hand over his heart. “I saw how much happier my beloved Hermione was after she had spent time chatting with you and decided that maybe she did need a friend after all. I trusted you because your family have always been faithful servants to me. I expected that you would know better than to touch what isn’t yours.” 

Draco gripped Hermione’s hand hard, unrelenting despite the Dark Lord’s sharp look at where they were joined.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes and let his hand fall limply back down to his side. He took a step to the left, leaving the doorway free. “You may go, Draco. You will not be seeing Hermione again. It seems as though the Carrow estate may be a better location for her after all. Such a pity, I’m told that the gardens here are excellent to raise children in. On second thought, perhaps I shouldn't let you go after all.” 

Voldemort was quick with his wand and almost fired off what was surely a powerful killing curse faster than Draco could even locate his own wand. Draco swore that moment passed in slow motion. He heard the Dark Lord say the words of the curse and panicked as he realized his wand wasn’t in his pocket. He watched the sickly green jet of light leave the tip of Voldemort’s wand and head straight for him. Before it could hit him, the spell then bounced off the shield that had suddenly sprung up around him and left a smouldering hole in the wall opposite them. He turned to find the watch he’d been vainly searching his pockets for in Hermione’s hand, her first gripping it tightly as she continued to point it at the Dark Lord. 

Hermione and Voldemort had begun to duel in earnest then, wordlessly firing off a litany of spells Draco could only guess at. Myriad colors flew around the room leaving destruction in their wake, breaking the glass of windows and mirrors alike, smashing furniture. He could tell Hermione was getting both angry and frustrated— her brows had furrowed just so and she had the little crinkles on the outside of her eyes that she only got when she was mad. The pair volleyed several more spells before she finally released a small shriek and yelled at the top of her voice: “Expelliarmus!” 

The spell was so effective that it knocked the Dark Lord on his back on the floor. He landed in an undignified heap right on top of a large shard of mirror glass. It pierced the back of his left shoulder, going straight through and exiting on the left side of his chest just below his collar bone. The glass pierced his heart. 

“Hermione,” he hissed, pressing a hand over where blood spurted from his wound, “you know the spell. Heal me, damn you! I am the Dark Lord Voldemort and you will not disobey my commands and let me die here.”

Hermione simply turned her back and walked out of the room, out of the wing, out of the Manor and stood in the garden soaking in the moonlight and the fresh air. Draco followed quietly, closing the door behind her and assuming the elves had silenced the room behind him because he could no longer hear Voldemort’s shouting. He watched Hermione take in the outdoors, her curls swaying softly in the breeze. 

Despite the horrors of what had just happened, despite being covered in debris and dust, she looked free. 

* * *

Draco was twenty-six when he finally convinced her to marry him. 

It had taken nearly ten years to convince her, but they were ten years well spent. Hermione had found her parents — who did indeed still love her only to find out that she had been taken through the use of blackmail and the Imperius Curse, she had not been given freely. They had spent several months apart — nearly a year — as she got to know her parents again and recovered from ten years in captivity. 

Draco had spent the time apart helping dismantle what was left of the Dark Lord’s ranks. He had quickly become disenchanted with the man and his ideology as he had grown close to Hermione. How anyone could think that everyone magical born to muggles was inferior would need only to spend five minutes with Hermione Granger to learn that was simply not the case. He helped those who wanted to learn and did his best to work with the new ministry to build cases against those who refused — he knew where all the bodies were buried, both literally and figuratively. 

When he was finally reunited with Hermione they found they both still had a great deal of affection for one another. They courted and got to know each other’s parents — Lucius swore he would  _ try  _ on pain of Azkaban and Narcissa’s wrath should he compromise their son’s happiness in any way. 

He asked her the first time when they had been together for a year. She said they were too young, she wanted to see the world and learn. So they traveled the world together and researched in every major library they could get into — and some they couldn’t, but used magic to anyway.

He asked next when they’d been together for eight years. She said she still wasn’t ready. She wanted to be more financially stable and have a more established career, to be able to afford a house. So they both went to work — and worked hard indeed. They shared lunches in the Ministry commissary and would bounce back and forth between one another’s flat every night, eventually moving in together.

When he asked her again two years later, it was in the foyer of the home he had built on the manor grounds for them. She had just been promoted to the assistant head of her department, he was due for a promotion at the beginning of the new year. She would never have to set foot in the Manor unless she wanted to, and even then, he had ensured that the wing where she had been kept was destroyed completely and walled off. He had found an oval cut green sapphire ring for her, flanked on either side by smaller oval-shaped diamonds on a platinum band. It was breathtaking, unique and  _ exactly _ to her tastes. 

This time when she cried he did not hesitate to hold her. Amongst her sobbed whispers of  _ yes. _

THE END.


End file.
